Latest Reading: “13 Days in September: The Dramatic Story of the Struggle for Peace”

I remember the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords and the names Menachem Begin (Israeli Prime Minister) and Anwar Sadat (Egyptian President). I was 11 years old in September 1978. Lawrence Wright is a great non-fiction writer because he brings history and culture alive. I loved filling in the details of this historic event by reading as an adult, Wright’s account of the event. The Hamas and Israel conflict raging right now, it makes it even more relevant.

I admire Jimmy Carter for having the courage to risk failure by bringing these two sworn enemies, Israel and Egypt, together to come up with a peace agreement between the two countries. Camp David is a Presidential retreat close to Washington, DC in the beautiful forested Catoctin Mountain Park, 60 miles north of the White House in Maryland. area of Maryland. Wright gives a day-by-day account of the 13 days they were together. He also weaves in historical background and biographical information of the key negotiators. I highly recommend reading the book.

I don’t think this could happen in 2025. Three presidents and their delegations together in a retreat for 13 DAYS. People don’t have this kind of time anymore in the fast-paced, connected world, almost 50 years later.

It makes sense that Carter would be attracted to solving this conflict. He was a deeply religious man and had traveled to the Biblical lands of Palestine when he as the Governor of Georgia. Carter’s wife, Rosalyn, thought it was a good idea to bring them together in the bucolic and peaceful environment of Camp David. Carter was a one-term president who was in the right place at the right time to get elected after the Nixon resignation. He had a much more successful post-presidency as a peacemaker and international advocate for human rights and democracy. I visited the Carter Center and was impressed with his legacy. Getting Egypt and Israel to sign a peace treaty and have it hold all this time later is an incredible legacy Jimmy Carter left. The violence has not stopped in the Middle East. Recently, Israel attacked Lebanon, Iran and Hamas, but they have not had any problems with Egypt, thanks to this significant diplomatic event in 1978.

Sadat, Begin, and Carter all won Nobel Peace Prizes, and reflecting on the event, all of them are looked at as heroes. There was a price, however, for making peace with an enemy. Egyptian soldiers assassinated Sadat 9 years later, in part because of the peace deal with Egypt. Begin got a lot of pressure from right-wing politicians in Israel for agreeing to vacate the Sinai Peninsula. Combined with the death of his wife, he ended up isolated and a changed man. Carter continued his human rights and peace-making initiatives throughout his entire life and was the only one out of the three who personally benefited from the accords. I think of all of the lives of Egyptians and Israelis that were saved over the almost 50 years of peace between the two countries. It was heartbreaking to hear the story of one of Begin’s closest advisors. His son was permanently disabled from a Egyptian bullet striking his forehead from a soldier’s rifle across the Suez Canal. How many more lives would have been lost without this peace deal?

Below are some of the historical and background ideas that I learned and made note of while reading the book.

In 1948 before it was officially made Israel, Arabs from the West Bank could travel freely into Israel. An increase in Jewish tourism and investment raised their standard of living from when it was under Jordanian control.
“Sadat was convinced that 70% of the conflict between Israel and the Arabs was psychological” This reminded me to Israel author (X) when he writes about how “stories” hold nations together and pit nations against each other.

Jerusalem is the center of many of the “stories” of three major religions. Israel seized East Jerusalem in the 1967 war. I didn’t realize how central the Temple Mount is to the three.

Jewish tradition says that Adam was made from dust at this spot, where Cain killed Abel, and King Solomon built the First Temple 1000 years before the birth of Jesus to house the Ark of the Covenant and the 10 Commandments.
Muslims call the Temple Mount “Haram al Sharif” and believe this was the spot that Abraham spared his son Ishmael, the father of the Arabs.
The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is the oldest building in Islam. Jewish tradition says God made the rocky outcropping as a perch when he created the universe. Muslims believe Muhammad ascended to heaven on his horse, al-Buraq, from this rock.
Babylonian leader Nebuchadnezzar tore the First Temple down in 586 BC and sent the Jews to Babylon. Persian King Cyrus freed to Jews and a Second Temple was placed on the same spot. The Roman sacked the Second Temple in 70 AD.
The Crusaders re-took the city in 1099, murdering thousands of Muslims and Jews. The Ottomans seized the city in 1517 and kept it until the end of World War I.

Anwar Sadat showed a lot of courage to visit Israel and speak to their congress earlier in 1978. He received death threats and several people in his party were assassinated by Palestinian terrorist . “…there are moments in the life of nations and peoples when it is incumbent on those known for their wisdom and clarity of vision to overlook the past with all its complexities and weighing memories, in a bold drive towards new horizons.”

Also in 1978, Palestinian militants landed a boat on a beach 40 miles north of Tel Aviv and murdered 38 Israelis, including 10 children. This is similar to the October 2022 attack that started the most recent violence.

Menachem Begin’s parents and siblings were killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust. He lived in what is now Brest, Belarus, and after escaping, led a guerrilla faction of the early Israeli military against the British who ran Palestine at this time. He would be considered a hardliner today and devoutly believed that God had given the Promised Land to his Jewish forefathers. Anwar Sadat was an army general who was emotional and aggressive. He felt he was the savior of downtrodden Egyptians. Jimmy Carter believed God wanted peace in the Holy Land, and he wasan instrument of God to make this happen.

1922 British census of Palestine: 84,000 Jews, 670,000 Arabs (71 000 Christian Arabs included)
Franklin Roosevelt was the first president to use it and called it “Shangri-la”. Dwight Eisenhower renamed it Camp David after his grandson.
A 265,000 square feet underground facility to serve as an alternate Pentagon is six miles from Camp David under a mountain called Raven Rock.
Look up Gog and Magog (Israel creation myth?) and look up Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade”
In 1948, there were 800,000 Jews living in Arab societies. When Arabs turned against Jews after Israel’s establishment, many left for Israel. This has diminished the Arab cities where they lived.
1948 5-nation war against Israel resulted in Egypt controlling Gaza and Jordan the West Bank. Israel annexed 75% of the British Mandate territory.

I like the idea of “constructive ambiguity,” a term coined by Henry Kissinger. It means the idea of leaving an agreement purposefully ambiguous to allow both sides to interpret it as they wish. For example, an agreement between China and the USA on the status of Taiwan. In the agreement, it only states that Taiwan is a province of China (One China) but does not detail how it will be governed. I was thinking about how I could use this diplomatic concept in my job as a leader of a school. My wife mentioned that perhaps in a dress code, this could be used. I deal with a lot of policy, and this is a concept I’ll keep in mind. `

“One-text procedure” – The Arbitrator in a dispute creates a document and then asks each side for its response. Matters that are not contested are counted as agreed upon. Those disputed are then addressed in a way that continually narrows the differences.
Hebrews/Israelites were first mentioned in texts in 1207 BC and Wright gives a summary of the archeological evidence of the Biblical/Torah stories. Not much there.

New vocabulary